In this triple-ended murder-mystery
spoof - a comic adaptation of the popular Parker Bros. board game, it
was revealed in the third ending ("This is what really happened"),
the most complex and believable of the multiple endings to the film,
that butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry) was actually the blackmailing host
Mr. Boddy -- and that 'Mr. Boddy' (Lee Ving) that had been killed was
actually Wadsworth's butler (!).

In summary, everyone except surprise 'gay'
FBI plant Mr. Green (Michael McKean) had murdered someone that night:
(Green: "They
ALL did it! But if you want to know who killed Mr. Boddy, I did. In the
Hall. With the revolver") -- to recap:

This psychological thriller by director
Richard Rush began with the suicidal death of disturbed, self-hating patient Michelle (Kathleen Wilhoite) while being counseled by NYC psychoanalyst Dr. Bill Capa
(Bruce Willis) in his high-rise Manhattan office. Distraught at the site of her dead body in a bright green dress lying on the concrete in a pool of blood after she jumped ("It was the reddest blood I ever saw, pooled around her green dress"), he began to suffer from psychosomatic, stress-induced color blindness - and couldn't see the color red. The divorced doctor was told by his therapist Larry Ashland (Jeff Corey): "To deny red is to deny emotion."

He quit his practice and traveled to LA to stay with
therapist/author friend Dr. Robert Moore (Scott Bakula) and figure
out if he was going "crazy." Bill said he felt a "distinct absence of pain" and admitted he was troubled and felt sexually-dead. When Bob - who was receiving death threats possibly from a patient - was violently stabbed to death by an unidentified black-clad assailant in his office after-hours, Bill took over Bob's ultra-modern home and his Monday group therapy sessions, and was quickly considered a suspect by case investigator Lt. Hector Martinez (Ruben Blades).

Bill soon became involved with
a torrid, provocative, sexually-advancing young female named Rose
(Jane March) who invited herself to a dinner date, made out with
him as they called for a taxi, and then arrived unexpectedly at his
home and made passionate love to him in the pool and bedroom. As
he researched his five patients, he zeroed in on the background of
16 year-old, bespectacled drug user Richie Dexter (Jane March), a
volatile "genuine nut case" who had gender-identity problems,
a social phobia, and spoke with a stutter. Richie's older over-protective
legal guardian brother Dale (Andrew Lowery), a welder in an ironworks-furniture
shop, vainly pleaded with Dr. Capa to release Richie from court-mandated
therapy. Capa found out that all of the Dexter children, who had
suffered from abuse and abandonment, had been assigned six years
earlier to child psychiatrist Dr. Niedelmeyer in Pasadena, but Niedelmeyer
couldn't be questioned - he had died within the last year. During
therapy, Dr. Capa learned that all of his patients (except Richie)
had recently taken on relationships, like he had with Rose:

(1) sado-masochist artist Casey (Kevin J. O'Connor) with an uninhibited model,
(2) oversexed nymphomaniac Sondra Dorio (Leslie Ann Warren) with lesbian girlfriend Bonnie (remarkably close in resemblance to Rose, and revealed to be one and the same - both with a 'rose' tattoo on their left butt-cheek),
(3) Buck (Lance Henriksen) on weekends with someone described as "pretty as hell," and
(4) obsessive-compulsive and self-detesting Clark (Brad Dourif) who said he had "found someone" who liked his "black, emotional hole, unattractive" self

Dr. Capa experienced an attempt on his life on the freeway by a driver in a red car, and painter Casey was gagged, strangled and had his throat slashed by someone who had cut out and burned the faces from his paintings.

Then, a discrepancy regarding the number of books on
Dr. Moore's office shelf over a few weeks revealed that Sondra had
temporarily borrowed a Van Gogh book and then returned it, without
looking at it. The book inside the Van Gogh jacket cover was actually
Dr. Moore's hand-written diary (he had deliberately hidden his diary
there) - with a single photograph of a half-naked Rose tucked inside.
On the back was a description of Rose modeling for Dr. Moore: "The sociopath, lacking the restraints that hold a normal character together can become anything. Amorality frees her to be universally perfect, a charming chameleon with a scorpion's tail." The individual in the photograph was recognized as Sondra's, Buck's, and Clark's "Bonnie" - and Capa's and Bob Moore's "Rose" - obviously a sociopathic female with a multiple personality disorder, who appeared to be the main suspect in the two murders!

The film's twist was that the main killer was "Richie's" deranged brother Dale, who had forced his pretty sister Rose to play-act the role of their deceased brother "Richie." Capa learned a breakthrough clue from Mrs. Edith Niedelmeyer (Shirley Knight) that her psychiatrist husband was a sexual molester, who had caused the real 12 year-old patient Richie to commit suicide: "Richie Dexter is dead! He killed himself four years ago...Because he couldn't stand what my husband was doing to him." When Capa went to confront Dale, he found "Richie," who removed her wig disguise, emerged as Rose, and rescued her from her torturing brother Dale, who suddenly attacked with a nail-gun. Lt.
Martinez (who appeared out of nowhere) was pinned to a wall, while
Dale captured Capa with a belt around his throat and threatened to
kill him with a mechanical blade.

Dale explained his motive - he was
increasingly disturbed that Rose (with her secondary personality of "Bonnie") was overtaking the "Richie" side of her personality, and he feared that "Bonnie's" modeling for Dr. Moore might cause him to link "Bonnie" to "Richie" and
destroy Rose's masquerade.

To protect Capa from dying, Rose killed
her brother with a nail-gun shot to the forehead, ran to the top of
the factory tower during a raging storm and was saved by Capa from
jumping and committing suicide when he grabbed her hand during a leap
- he simultaneously recovered from being color-blind.

The
Bugged Couple Were Not Victims - They Were Conspiring to Commit Murder

In this brilliant crime story, the young couple (Ann
(Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forrest)) that professional wire-tapper
Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) spied (and listened) upon during clandestine
meetings and thought were potential victims because of her marital
infidelity.

There was a murder committed
in Room 773 of San Francisco's Jack Tar Hotel at the agreed-upon
time heard in the conversation. However, the couple weren't the
victims! They were actually cold-blooded murderers of "the Director" (Robert
Duvall) of a secretive company; she was "the Director's" wife
- a femme
fatale who orchestrated the homicide (with her hard-to-decipher
sentence: "He'd kill us if he got the chance") by luring
her husband to the hotel room, where Mark murdered him. She later
made his bloody murder look like an accidental automobile crash
to inherit his fortune.

The film ended with the revelation that
a frightened, neurotic and paranoid Harry was also under surveillance
the entire time: ("We know that
you know, Mr. Caul. For your own sake, don't get involved any further.
We'll be listening to you"). He frantically tore up his entire
apartment to vainly attempt to find a bugging device - the final
scene found Harry playing his saxophone alone in his destroyed
home.

Crimes of Passion (1984)

Joanna
Stabbed the Reverend; Grady Ended Up With Joanna

British director Ken Russell's
neon-lit, dark, "guilty pleasure" cult tale and erotic thriller opened with a marital therapy session, in which new attendee -- part-time private investigator, home electronics store owner and security expert Bobby Grady
(John Laughlin) asserted that he had no marriage-related problems ("What the hell am I doing here?")
in his 12-year marriage, although this would be refuted shortly.

The
film told about a moonlighting, kinky LA street-walking, pill-popping
prostitute named China Blue (Kathleen Turner) who wore a platinum wig
but by day worked as a prim but workaholic fashion designer named Joanna
Crane. In a grungy downtown area filled with XXX adult stores, bars,
live nude and peep shows, she wore a platinum wig and light blue silky
dress and frequented the Paradise Isle Hotel for tricks.

In the startling conclusion, the preacher assaulted
Joanna in her own apartment:

The reverend's gonna save you tonight once and for all...I'm a messenger of God and I only want to heal you...One more game, the final one, the one that will free you forever. Do I have your trust? Because we can only play if I have your trust.

He proposed a game of "exorcising the demons" -- "my calling is the ultimate salvation, and its ends are sacrosanct. With my ecclesiastic gift, plus the grace of God, and a little help from Superman here, I shall bestow upon you the supreme humanitarian blessing and give you your freedom. You, uh, you do want that, don't you? I knew you would...My issue has always been your salvation."

The violent altercation was predicated on the reverend's
desire to save her, as he played demented songs on a piano to her
as she was tied down to her drafting table:

I looked at you and I saw myself. I saw the same
escape, the same malignancy. But I know the cure and I know how
desperately you need it. And only I can give it to you...Kill me
Joanna, give my life value. Give me something to die for. Save
me. You are me! One of us has to die so the other can live. Kill
me, you worthless c--t. I'm all the men who ever hurt you, who
made you feel like s--t, who stole your self-respect and turned
you into China Blue. Kill me! Release the rage. Get it out. Get
even!

Although it appeared that China Blue would be the victim,
the scene ended with the reverend's death (his parting words were: "Goodbye, China Blue") after he was stabbed in the back by his own dildo/vibrator in a role-reversal twist - he wore China Blue's dress, while she was wearing his preacher's outfit. She stabbed him as he threatened to assault Grady (who had arrived to save Joanna) with a pair of scissors.

The film ended with Grady attending a therapy group
where he admitted, smiling, that he was in a new relationship with
Joanna:

She saved my life. We're together now. I'm not
sure if it's gonna work out. We don't have a whole hell of a lot
in common other than the fact that we both need help and each other.
The thing, you see, that scared me the most during my marriage was
just admitting that I was scared and letting Amy down. Well, I can't
pretend anymore. I was scared s--tless to come back here. I told
Joanna, and she took me in her arms and she said, it's OK to be scared.
I felt stronger and freer and more like a man than I've ever felt
before in my life. Then we f--ked our brains out.

The Crying Game (1992, UK)

Dil
Was Actually a Male Transvestite

Neil Jordan's taut political thriller film has become
legendary and famous for its shocking twist. Guilt-ridden, reformed
Irish Republican Army volunteer terrorist Fergus (Stephen Rea) journeyed
to London to befriend the lover of British hostage/soldier Jody (Forest
Whitaker) who had been accidentally killed after being taken prisoner.
Jody, trying to escape from captivity, was hit and run over by a convoy of British army soldiers in Northern
Ireland.

The dead man's
lover turned out to be a beautiful cabaret lip-synch singer/hairdresser
named Dil (Best Supporting Actor!-nominated Jaye Davidson).

As the
camera slowly panned down Dil's naked body after he dropped his red
kimono robe, there was a sexually-disorienting view of Dil's penis
-- his maleness was shown in this surprising full-frontal unveiling,
causing Fergus to wonder about his attraction to Dil. Dil asked: "You
did know, didn't you?" and then realized that Fergus hadn't known.

Cube (1997, Can.)

Only
the Autistic Kazan Survived From the Cube

Screenwriter/director Vincenzo Natali's debut feature film was this low-budget, psychological sci-fi horror-thriller. The sleeper film opened inside an immense, b/w cube-shaped room, with vault-like doors situated in the center of its six square surfaces. Each door led to another similar interlocking cubed room, although in different colors (blue, red, amber, green, etc.). Some of the maze-connected rooms were booby-trapped with motion-detectors and destructive devices (a sharp metal grating, flame-thrower, acid-spray, rotating razor wires, sound-activated spikes, etc.).

Each of the cube-shaped rooms was one of many rooms
in a Rubik's Cube of sorts (it functioned like "a giant combination lock" moving through a cycle over a period of days). By film's end, the dwindling group of survivors were seeking a "bridge" or exit room that only appeared momentarily - the only means of escape to the outer shell. Safe, untrapped rooms on the cube's outer edge where escape was possible were ultimately discovered to be marked with prime power numbers.

After the prologue, the six characters or "inmates" in the cubes [each clad in prison-style uniforms, and each with names of various prisons] were introduced. They were mysteriously placed there and did not know each other, although each had a purpose or "gift" in solving their predicament and attempting to escape from the labyrinthine trap (in order of deaths):

Alderson (Julian Richings) - the first 'inmate,' bald, in the prologue; isolated and killed after entering an amber-colored room where he was sliced into cubes by a large metal grate, that then folded up into the ceiling

Rennes, aka "Wren" (Wayne Robson) - famous French ex-con thief, sensor-expert and escape artist; in the blue room, sprayed in the face with acid and killed

Dr. Helen Holloway (Nicky Guadagni) - elderly free clinic, social worker-doctor; a paranoid, anti-establishment conspiracy theorist; fell to her death in the gap between the door and the outer shell when let go by Quentin ("she slipped")

David Worth (David Hewlett) - cynical government office worker/engineer who built the large hollow exterior cube shell around other cubes ("there is no way out of here...I designed the outer shell...the sarcophagus...It's a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a masterplan. Can you grasp that? Big Brother is not watching you...This is an accident, a forgotten perpetual public works project"); died from a lethal stab wound in abdomen (administered by Quentin) after saving Kazan from being killed by Quentin

Kazan (Andrew Miller) - mentally-handicapped; an autistic savant able to perform complex mathematical equations and solve the puzzling room numbers; the only survivor who disappeared into the bright white light of the exterior as the film ended

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Benjamin
Was Caroline's Biological Father

The plot-line was told in flashback. A dying woman
in her 80s, Daisy (Cate Blanchett) engaged in a deathbed conversation
with her 40-ish daughter Caroline (Julia Ormond). As her mother was
weakening and dying, the daughter read outloud the diary of Daisy's
love of her life Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt), born old and growing
younger as he aged in reverse.

Until the end of the film, although
fairly obvious, Caroline was revealed to be Daisy's daughter by Benjamin,
born out of wedlock (at the birth of the healthy baby girl, recorded
in Benjamin's diary, Daisy spoke: "And we named her for my mother, Caroline." Caroline (astonished): "This Benjamin was my father? And this is how you tell me?") -- Daisy had remarried and the daughter, Caroline, had grown up thinking that her stepfather Robert was her birth father, and she was visibly upset by the revelation. As a pre-teen at age 12, Caroline (Joeanna Sayler) was introduced by 60-ish Daisy (who had been remarried to husband Robert) to twenty-ish Benjamin ("You knew him when you were just a baby")
but not told that he was her biological father.

At film's end, Daisy
uttered her last words: "Good night, Benjamin" -
with a symbolic hummingbird at her window. As she died, Hurricane Katrina
struck the hospital and flooded the city of New Orleans, including a
warehouse where a reverse-running clock built for the train station (at
the time of Benjamin's birth) had been stored and was still functioning.

Cutter's Way (1981)

Bone
Shot Dead Murderer Cord With Cutter's Weapon

In the stunning concluding scene of this crime thriller,
embittered, self-righteous, drunken, one-eyed, one-armed, one-legged,
crazed Vietnam vet Alexander Cutter (John Heard) - believing obsessively
that elite and menacing oil businessmen J. J. Cord (Stephen Elliott)
was the murderer of a 17 year-old sex-crimes victim named Vickie
and also responsible for the house-burning death of his wife Maureen "Mo" Cutter
(Lisa Eichhorn) - rode heroically (and tragically) on a white stallion
within Cord's guarded residential mansion during a large garden party
- and lethally crashed into Cord's study window.

There, his
laconic, laid-back friend Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) had just learned
that Cord was the female's killer - inspiring the usually-uncommitted
and reluctant Bone to take up the fight and shoot Cord dead with
the weapon in Cutter's dead hand.

The gun blast abruptly ended the
film.

Cypher (2002) (aka Brainstorm)

In
Actuality, Morgan
Sullivan Was Sebastian Rooks - He Had Schemed to Enter Into
Sunways As a Espionage Agent To Steal and Destroy a
Blue Disc That Had Marked Co-Conspirator/Lover Rita Foster For Termination

The overwhelming and perplexing plot of director Vincenzo
Natali's futuristic, science-fiction spy thriller was only comprehensible
when it was explained in a few sentences at its conclusion. The stylized
film's themes were brainwashing, the manipulation of identity, paranoia,
and corporate espionate, conducted between two rival and faceless computer
conglomerates: Digicorp Technologies and Sunways Systems. There was
something to be learned from the meaning of the title word cipher --
a number with no value (such as zero), a non-influential person, or
the key to a code.

The corporate spy assuming a different name was a non-entity
geek/pawn named Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam), to "spy
on other corporations, inform us of their business plans, research
programs, and counter-intelligence operations." He took the name Jack
Thursby, living a suburban life in San Jose, when he was hired at Digicorp
to infiltrate Sunways. He was instructed by Digicorp's Head of Security,
Ed Finster (Nigel Bennett) to attend various business conventions,
and secretly record them with a pen. He was also told to create his
own personality: "He's whoever you want him to be." Then, about halfway
through the film, he switched sides and as Thursby was recruited to
work as a counter-intelligence double-agent for Sunways, briefed by
its Head of Security Frank Callaway (Timothy Webber). Sunways' goal
was to have Thursby feed Digicorp false and corrupted data to sabotage
their operations. In both cases, he had a newly-acquired taste for
scotch on the rocks, golf, and smoking cigarettes, and fantasized about
sailing in the South Pacific islands. And both companies were ruthless
and would eliminate him after he completed his espionage operation.

As Thursby, he met a mysterious,
cool and aloof femme
fatale Asian
woman - a guardian angel of sorts named Rita Foster (Lucy Liu) during
his cross-country travel experiences (which included painful, recurring
brain flashes, headaches and neck aches). When he became increasingly
confused about his own identity, she told him that he was being conditioned
and brainwashed by Digicorp (by drinking mineral water at the conventions,
which she said were "charades"), warning that he could be eliminated.
She offered pills to help him get rid of his nightmares, and then
an injection to 'undrug him' - to "block out the Digicorp narcotic"
and keep him from being brainwashed and programmed with a new identity.
(During the next boring seminar lecture, sinister technicians placed
VR helmets on hypnotized, drugged out conference participants - all
spies with phony assignments and identities.) Later, Callaway told
Thursby when he was hired at Sunways that Rita was working for an
unseen, enigmatic boss - a deep-cover mole in cyberspace named Sebastian
Rooks ("a freelance operative who we hired to find out how Digicorp
was getting their agents past our neurograph"). Rooks was considered
"very dangerous and very ruthless," but Rita promised he would protect
Thursby.

In the derivative film's conclusion, it appeared that
double-agent Morgan was in the reprogramming grip of three different
entities, serving as a data courier. Rita helped him escape from Sunways'
underground metal vault (their secured data warehouse) in Wichita,
Kansas after he penetrated the vault's secure network and stole a blue
computer disc containing a vital downloaded data file. She then delivered
him to meet Sebastian Rooks in a downtown penthouse suite. But feeling
"used" and lied to from the very start, Morgan shot Rita in the shoulder
and threatened to destroy the disk. Then, in an adjoining room, he
noticed three objects he loved (whiskey, golf clubs, and cigarettes)
and a picture of himself and Rita, his lover. He
was Sebastian Rooks. The wounded Rita then explained everything:

I tried stopping you. But you insisted. You said it was
the only way to steal the data from the vault. Welcome home, Mr. Rooks...Listen
to me. You are not Morgan Sullivan. You created him out of your own
imagination. Your life in the suburbs, your miserable marriage - your
wife Amy was one of your own operatives playing a part you assigned
her. The more you fight the truth, the more it'll hurt...You used the
same brainwashing technique Digicorp uses. You were the one who sold
them the technology to begin with!...It makes perfect sense. Turning
yourself into Morgan Sullivan was the only way you could pass Digicorp's
neurograph. It was the only way you could get hired to be their spy
and get sent to Sunways.

But she didn't know what was on the blue computer disc.
They were interrupted by assault teams from both companies seeking
Sebastian. To fly away in an escape helicopter that Sebastian had designed,
Rita prompted him to remember his past self as Sebastian to pilot it.
Both heads of security were astonished to recognize Sullivan as Sebastian
("Jesus, he's Rooks!"). He successfully prevented the two of them from
being captured by exploding the skyscraper's roof.

The final scene was on Rooks' sailing boat in the South
Pacific, where Sebastian and Rita looked at the contents of the blue
Sunways disc. The file displayed Rita's picture - she had been marked
for death by Callaway with the words: "TERMINATE WITH EXTREME
PREJUDICE." As
Sebastian tossed the disc (the only one of its kind, "the file in the
vault was erased and this is the only copy") into the ocean to save
his lover, he noted: "Now
there's no copy at all."